The Internet has become a worldwide packet switched network for communicating nearly all forms of information, including text, graphics, video, audio, and animations. The Internet includes a World Wide Web (WWW) of client-server based facilities on which web pages and files can reside on information sources, such as servers, and users can interface with the information sources via consumer processing devices configured for web browsing.
To obtain information (such as a HTML file) from a web site, a web browser first sends a request to an information server for that web site. The request can include an internet protocol (IP) address assigned to the consumer processing device and a uniform resource locator (URL) that identifies the information server on which the requested information resides. Upon receiving the request, the information server retrieves the requested information and sends it to the browser associated with the IP address. Upon receiving the information, the browser can display the information as a web page to a user. The information may contain user selectable links to other information at the information server, which can be selected to cause the browser to request corresponding information from the information server.
While technological improvements are allowing users to download more information in less time, enhancements to the information content of pages (such as real time audio and video) may increase the amount of information to be downloaded and, hence, may increase wait time. Much of the information content of a downloaded web page can be undesirable to a user. For example, it is now commonplace for web pages to include advertisements that include large information files, such as video, audio, and/or animations to capture a user's attention. Even web page content, which is not advertisements, may contain large portions that may not be pertinent or desirable to a particular user. Consequently, users sometimes await the download of significant amounts of undesired information in order to obtain desired information. Once downloaded, the resulting page that is displayed to a user can contain animations, video, and audio that may be superfluous, distracting, and/or offensive to the user. Associated delay and annoyance can be compounded as a user downloads further pages via the selectable links.